Time has always been in short supply for me. Although I enjoy making friends, time has never been my friend, and likely never will be. I persistently try to squeeze a 25-hour day into the standard 24 hours, but it stubbornly refuses to concede every time, time after time. Time is the bane of my existence. It forces me to make choices—choices that I do not want to make. Choices that make me choose between having a cake and eating it, between Disneyland and Neverland.
Archive for the 'Personal' Category
There are no students that fail to learn. There are only teachers that fail to teach.
Of course, this applies only to students that are willing and are making an effort to learn.
I’m not sure where I heard this from, but it has been burned into my memory, and I have adopted it as my own teaching philosophy ever since. I really wish more teachers and professors would think this way.
I think the film Freedom Writers was an incredible example of this philosophy in action. It was based on a true story with real people in Los Angeles. I highly recommend that you check it out, even if you’re not interested in pedagogy. It’s a fantastically moving story, and they didn’t even have to tweak the plot all that much to make it super dramatic.
I’m an organic chemistry TA, and I care very much about what my students think – how cool and suave I am, how I look, how I teach, how I grade, and whether I’m coherent at all. I value their input. Because students who can’t learn don’t exist – there are only teachers who can’t teach. If I don’t get their feedback, how else do I know if I’m even teaching the material?
Deadlines with me are lax, lab report redos are entirely possible (even if against the rules), and I never mind explaining the same thing five times over. The way I run my classes ends up taking lots of time, in class and out, but I feel that I’m doing the right thing. The choices I make are simply manifestations of the above philosophy. Learning shouldn’t be made a chore – it should be fun. I argue that the teacher-student relationship should as personal as possible, without all the barriers of professionalism. Personal, down-to-earth professors are the best, aren’t they?
I don’t even think I’m a great teacher. (Though I do love to teach.) Sometimes I’m not as well prepared for lab as I could be. Other times I miss errors or omissions in lab reports. But from the little experience I’ve had – it seems that none of that matters. If you follow this philosophy, you simply succeed as a teacher.
My student evaluations from this past semester are attached here to attest to this philosophy. (Rare opportunity for me to gloat – carpe diem!)
I’m finding myself in what you might call a tangiblistic or physicalistic episode at the moment. In fact, I’ve found myself adopting more and more of guichemot‘s views – for those of you who have seen him around i0.
This is a little amusing, because it is the complete opposite mindset from the one I was in a year ago, when I convinced myself that all things physical or tangible were ultimately of no consequence due to their ephemeral natures. Back then, I was caught in the trap of kong tan (空談), or empty talk. For the longest time, I have been trying to find a balance between being super emptyistic and spiritualistic versus being too tangiblistic and physicalistic. Now, I’m stuck in the latter world, and quite frankly, it’s not really that bad of a feeling.
We have a Daoist Dharma class series going on in mid-August, and I’ll report back on this thereafter. In the meantime, any new posts will likely not be spiritualistically relevant.
Do psychic powers exist? (Yikes!)
About five summers ago, I was at a red light waiting impatiently to make a left turn from LaSalle Street onto Erwin Road (Duke University campus, NC). When the light turned green and the straight traffic from the opposite side cleared, I was ready to go. But at the very last minute, just as I eased off the brakes, a thought crossed my mind.
“Nah, I shouldn’t go just yet. I’m going to sit here just a bit longer.” This made no sense. The light was green, the coast was clear, and I was a teenage driver. Why would such a thought ever even cross my mind?
So after a few seconds had passed, I shrugged it off and put my foot on the gas. I immediately slammed on the brakes as I saw a woman run through the red light at 35-45 mph (see figure). If I hadn’t been delayed those couple of seconds by that peculiar thought, she would have crashed right into my driver’s door, and things would have gone to hell for both of us. If I was lucky, I would have broken a couple of bones. But I don’t think I would have walked away.
Do I have psychic abilities? (That got your attention.) Well, it probably depends on what you define as a “psychic ability.” Society and the media have made psychics out to be quacks. But are they, really? Maybe we all have some kind of innate psychic abilities, kind of like a sixth sense, that most of us just haven’t been able to put our fingers on.
I have a friend in California who has a similar story. Continue reading ‘Psychic abilities?!’
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